SYSK Selects: How Twinkies Work

Twinkies have a reputation for being so processed that they can last for years and years, but they're not as hardy as you'd expect. Uncover the sweet story of Twinkies in this classic SYSK.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Stuff
You Should Know Saturday selects Mr Chuck here, Charles W.
Chuck Bryant one half maybe one third of Stuff you
Should Know, It depends on the day. I'm gonna go
this week with how Twinkies Work from July nine, two nine.
This was a fun one. I like my uh or

(00:21):
rather our pop culture editions. I like our food episodes,
and it all kind of came together with Twinkies, that
magical little a little little snack that no one quite
understands and knows what it really is. Is it cake?
It's cakey? Is it creamy? It's creamy? But what is
it really? Where did they come from? Is it true

(00:44):
that twinkie will last for a thousand years? We get
the answers to all this and how Twinkies work right now.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works

(01:07):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to arguably the most important
podcast Chuck Bryant and I will ever record. I'm Josh Clark.
This is Stuff you Should Know, and brother, I am
jacked up me three you're ready? Yeah, I'm speaking for Jerry.
So she's the Marcel Marcel of our group. Yeah, she's
she's always wears the white gloves. I hate mimes. I

(01:29):
actually don't hate moms. It's just a cliche to say
you hate mimes. Mimes are cool. It says who that
mins are cool? Yeah, I just said it, jerk. Chuck
and I have clearly been eating far too many twinkies
in preparation of this. Yes we have, yeah, Chuck, Yes,
what do you know about the twinkie? Let's talk about twinkies.

(01:49):
Let's talk about twinkies. Everyone knows the twinkie is a
popular junk food snack cake. Yes, legendary junk food snack cake.
I would say, I would say ten day as well.
I'm glad we're doing something light like this. Yeah, just
lighting sponge. Yeah, yeah, Chuck. How long is it twinkie?

(02:10):
Twinkie is uh four inches long? How wide is it? Twinkie?
Inch and a half? Did you know that originally it
was first invented it was made with banana cream filling. Indeed,
let's get into this, buddy. Okay, those are just some teasers,
all right, So the twinkie was first invented in the
nineteen thirties. Yes, Continental Bakeries. Yeah, they're the vice president

(02:30):
of Continental Bakeries, which is already doing business as Hostess,
which we know and love, is the maker of Twinkies
and what I consider to be the greatest snack food
of all time, the crumb cake. Oh really, you a fan?
I like the nutty bar, the little Debbie nutty bars.
We're not we're talking host is here, buddy? Yeah? Um,
they will assassinate you. What are those They're like pink balls?

(02:54):
What are those snowballs? Chuck? Alright, So back in the
vice president of Continental Bakery, he's a guy named James
what is it, James Dooer. James Dooer not a Scotch maker.
His brother could have been. Um. He decided that the

(03:14):
company's idle machinery that was used to make a strawberry
filled little shortbread fingers was the brand name UM could
be put to better use. Well, the machines were idle
because seas, yeah, seasonal, because strawberries only grow certain times
of the year, right, so the rest of the year
that they would just sit there and this bug doer
and he decided to do something about it. So he

(03:34):
came up with a little, uh, little yellow cake filled
with creamy filling. Jammy frosting if you were that could
be made year round. Um. And apparently on his way
to a marketing meeting for this snack cake, he passed
a billboard for twinkletoe shoes, which I gotta tell you,
I would never buy shoes called twinkle toe shoes. Sure

(03:57):
you would, you dream sailor totally. Uh. And that was it.
He had the name right there, and twinkies were born. Yeah,
there's always a cute story behind names like that. Anytime
the words twinkle and toes are put together, it's a
cute story. Yeah. Um, so twinkies were born. And uh,
as I said, they were made with banana cream filling,

(04:18):
right for a while. Yeah, until World War Two. Yeah,
I didn't this. I thought this was pretty interesting. They
quit doing that because there was a shortfall of bananas
during the war. Yeah, I had no idea. No, I
can see rubber and and you know, iron steel and yeah,
I know, men, maybe it's from all the banana bombs
we were dropping confetti missiles. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, so

(04:41):
that they replaced the banana with vanilla frosting, right, and
it's stuck. Yeah, it definitely stuck. Although um, every once
in a while Hostess released the banana flavored Twinkie and
like the limited run, and every time they did they
noticed sales increased, which is pretty substanti toll. And now
it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk

(05:05):
about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was
the early twinkie. Yeah, it was in the early days, Josh.
It was made with eggs, milk, butter, as you would
expect it to be because it was cake, right, and
it had a shelf life. The problem there was had
a shelf life of what like two days two days,
so the salesman had to rotate the stock every two days.

(05:25):
And that was cool because they tasted good. But Doer said,
you know this isn't I'm not making as much money
as I could, Chuck. Can you imagine how divine a
twinkie made with like real butter and milk and eggs
would be. It's called it's called cake. Well, yeah, but
take with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah,

(05:46):
that would be great. I would love for someone to
make and send me a real original twinkie. That would
be awesome. Yeah. I just zoned out for a second
thinking about that. I know, seriously, you just glazed over. Okay,
So these days it's actually up to the nine ingredients,
and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of chemicals going on there. You've got
like yellow number five. There's still sugar in it, plenty

(06:09):
of sugar, just corn syrup of course, our old friend.
And uh, there's also bleached wheat flour. I think sugar
and flour the two biggest ingredients in it, right right. Uh.
Monoglycerides and diaglycerides have replaced the eggs, yeah, which act
as emulsifiers. Smulsifiers, they stabilize the cake batter and enhance

(06:29):
the flavor. Yeah. Apparently for the filling they use to
achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much It
emosifies the frosting. Same thing. Yeah, And there's hydrogenated shortening
instead of butter, although there is artificial butter flavor and
artificial vanilla flavor, and both of those are actually made

(06:51):
from petroleum. Yeah. When I read that, I was I
was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm
not a big I mean, do eat twinkies now anymore? Well,
you know, I don't eat at all, but I do
occasionally enjoy a twinkie, for sure. I haven't had a
twinkie in a long time. Did you treat yourself? And
I'm not opposed. I mean, I'll down the Ben and
Jerry's and I'm not opposed to eating fattening goodness. I know.

(07:13):
I think part of it is twinkies are associated with youth. Yeah,
i'd agree with that. I'm telling you, go back and
eat a twinkie. You'll love yourself. Well, you know, my
mom used to make um strawberry shortcake with twinkies. Nice. Yeah,
it was a good move, very nice seventies dessert too. Yeah,
you know, before the key party, load the kids up
with a twinkie strawberry shortcake. And apparently she's not the

(07:35):
only one to experiment with twinkies. I have a Twinkies
cookbook at home, actually sorts of crazy stuff in there. Yeah,
you should have brought that in. I should have. I
don't have the kind of foresight that you expect me
to have. You had the deep fried twinkie. I used
to make them and sell them at this beer festival
the last couple of years. Oh dude, I can make
a fried twinkie like you would not believe. How do

(07:55):
you do that? It's incredibly simple. So you have like
a vat of oil. I think peanut oil. Maybe peanut
all is the best. It's the worst for you, but
it tastes the best. Um. And you just take like
pancake batter or fry batter, right, um, and you make
the batter up better up and uh you you just

(08:17):
dip the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the
deep fryer. I just throw it in there. Wow, man,
that sounds good. Pull it out, throw some powdered sugar
on there. Oh my god. Actually you'll see. God, it's
like a funnel cake. Turbo funnel cake is what it
really is. No, not at all, not at all. It's
like it's like a funnel cake with a twinkie inside.

(08:39):
It's the greatest thing you'll ever have. And I can
make a good fried oreo too. Really, Huh. You never
cook for me. I will sometimes you'll have to come over.
We'll shave some years off our life. Seriously, Uh, excuse me?
Should we talk about the the process of how they
make it in the factory. It's kind of cool. M h. Yeah, so, Josh,

(09:27):
we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance
to add some sound things. Okay, we're in the we're
in the Twinkie fact you look good in the hairnet.
By the way, I appreciate that. What they do is
they have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie
shape molds upside down. Twinkies are baked up what you
would consider upside down. The golden brown bottom is actually
upside it's brown. There's a lot. I actually used to

(09:49):
hear that they weren't, in fact baked brown, and that
was added color. Not true. They are baked brown on
the bottom. Indeed. Yeah, you talked to the widow of
James dowert about that. It didn't you did that, spoke
to her personally. So they throw the battery in there.
It's baked at a cool three fifty fahrenheit for nine
to twelve minutes. Cool. Uh. The after after cools, they

(10:14):
you know the famous three holes in the in the
bottom of the twinkie. Those are from the manufacturing process.
They're cream filling injectors. Yeah, and they stick those three
things in there and squirt in the cream, which I
wish they just scort that in my mouth. So you
just want to lay down on the conveyor belt and
go down the twinkie line, have the stuff sported in
your mouth straight from the the try injection. Yeah, how

(10:37):
that sounds good, does So that's pretty much it. Man.
They seal it air tied in the package, and um,
apparently the ceiling process is really where the preservation comes in, right,
because Chuck, if there's anything that everyone agrees on with Twinkies,
it's that they will last indefinitely. Not true, No, it isn't.
And actually there's only one ingredient in the twinkie that's

(11:00):
added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid right there.
There are there are some preservative properties of some of
the other ingredients, um, but ultimately there's only one added
ingredient that's meant to preserve it. And it's actually, like
you said, the air tight package that makes a twinkie last.
And there are all sorts of urban myths about the

(11:21):
one I like best is that they're still selling the
original run of Twinkies, which actually is is clearly a
lie because they would be banana flavored. Um. But the
Hostess Company says that twinkies have a shelf life of
twenty five days. Yeah, not twenty five years, no, say no,
but yeah, there there have been some experiments that indicate

(11:42):
the contrary. Um. There's actually these kids who very recently
this last school year out in uh what is it,
Wallowa County, Oregon, two little kids, Logan Waldron and c. J. Horne. Um,
we're talking about whether or not twinkies could last in
definitely how long they could last? Um. And they have

(12:02):
a very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based
on this picture, is the arguably the best looking and
most stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name
is Lisa Morrise. And she said, you know what, why
don't you guys do a scientific experiment. That's that's a
bus driver. I know it's quite a babe, I know,
I must say, I know. Um. She encouraged them to

(12:24):
uh to to conduct their own experiments. So they put
a double pack my favorite kind of Twinkies in a
mayonnaise jar, closed it and put it in a rock crib,
which I'm not sure what that is, but they basically
buried it. And the kids were planning on doing it
until they were eighteen but they just you know, they're
like nine exactly. But she kept encouraging him and to

(12:48):
wait at least until the end of the school year,
and they did so. Nine months later, they popped it open,
eight the twinkies, one each. They both said they were fine.
One kid said he got a belly ache from it.
The other kids said he was fine. So they are
now encouraging teachers around the country science teachers to conduct
similar experiments. But yeah, so as far as these two

(13:08):
are concerned, a twinkie shelf life is at least nine
months greater than days. Yeah, well, I know you just
mentioned the double pack. I know. I like the double
pack because there's two of them. No, because of the
little cardboard in there, and you can scrape the little
uh cakey goodness off the cardboard and eat it. I
just lick it off the cardboard. It's like the cheese
paper and a on a cheeseburger. Do you really eat

(13:33):
all that stuff? Oh? Dude? Who doesn't take the paper
from a McDonald's cheeseburger and scrape the cheese off of
it and eat it? People who want to live? Ye,
shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pow Twinky Man,
Twinky the Kid. Let's talk about Twinkie the Kid. I
just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had a
Twinky the Kid T shirt when I was one of those.

(13:56):
It was awesome. I wish I still had it. Yeah,
I'm sure there's still out there. Yeah, I wonder what
why Twinkie the Kid. It's famous. Uh if you've never
seen it, and I'm sure everyone has, it was a
cowboy motif, also lasso on a hat and boots. And
I saw a dude online today that had a Twinky
the Kid tattoo. That's a pretty cool tattoo, my friend. Yeah,
that definitely beats tazz or a dolphin or a turtle,

(14:19):
sunburst barbed wire around your arm night. Yeah, so Twinkie
the Kid. Cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember
seeing Twinky the Kid ads in between acts of thunder
the barbarian right in hanker for a hunk of cheese.
Remember that? What was that house rock? H No, it

(14:40):
was like, yeah, the nutrition people, Yeah exactly, I got
a hanker for a hunk of pocket full of something. Yeah,
because hunk of cheese is really healthy for you. That
was clearly the Dairy Association. So Chuck, let's talk about
twinkies and pop culture. Yeah, this is good stuff. Well
they're not pop culture, real culture. Yeah his Yeah, my friend,

(15:01):
have you heard of Twinkie Gate? Yeah, go ahead and
break that one down. That's good. So there was a
guy who was seventy one back in five was running
for a place on the Minneapolis City Council. His name
was George Bellair, and he was actually indicted for bribery
because at a I guess a candidate for him. He
was the lone candidate for it. I guess it was.

(15:22):
He hosted it, he provided, he he provided coffee, kool
Aid and twinkies for these senior groups that were there. Um,
and he was indicted for bribery trying to bribe constituency.
They didn't call it kool Aid Gate, no, And I
was thinking about that too there. I think kool Aid

(15:46):
had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah,
we'll forever be enshrined with I mean a drinking the
kool aib um that's in Alexicon now, drink the kool Aid. Definitely,
it's got it's own thing. Sure, twinkies are much more versatile.
You know. Um, it's such an ironic twist to crime,

(16:08):
you know, but that's not the only crime that they've
been associated with. Well, can I cover this one please.
In the nineteen seventy nine, Dan White UH of San
Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk, who was was
he a city councilman? He was and a and a
supervisor and the first, yeah, supervisor, the first openly homosexual

(16:29):
public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk. And the
mayor also got capped too. Mayor also got capped, and
Dan White is who did the deed, and the famous
twinkie defense was used in his case because they said
he was under severe depression at the time and as
evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically was wolfing

(16:50):
down Twinkies and junk food. Junk food. Apparently twinkies was mentioned.
It does show up in the in the court transcripts,
but it was one witness who used the impassing and
I actually ding Dong's and ho hoes were mentioned way more.
But yeah, the guy was apparently, um homicidal depression brought
on by a poor diet and it actually worked. Rather

(17:13):
than first this is premeditated murder. He got manslaughter and
eight years that was that, and that the media ran
with it in the twinkie defense. Speak you still here
it again? Why not the ding dong defense? It's even
funnier the ho ho defense. Sure that that would be
confused with Santa Claus probably you know why, because twinkies
are an American icon, me and you and former President

(17:37):
Bill the Lady Killer Clinton. Really yeah, he actually selected
a Twinkie to be placed in the Millennium time capsule
in alongside the complete works of Louis Armstrong that works
at William Faulkner. The state flag of Hawaii. There's a
twinkie in there too, So in a hundred years people
will really be able to find out just how long
the shelf life is for twin case, how about half

(17:59):
a twink That was my Clinton that even though it
was a little yeah you got the thumb out your teeth. Uh.
So that is the twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mill
that was the Millennium capsule. Oh yeah, we've moved Millennium falcon.
Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh should we talk
about the t w I n k I E S Project?

(18:21):
I can't wait? Pretty cool these got and this is
very right. Yeah, Rice University. It was kind of a
while ago. These students, as college students, are so fun.
It was called the test with inorganic noxious cakes with
a K in extreme situations, which spells out twinkies. And
let's let's go over a couple of things that they

(18:41):
did with twinkies. You tell them yours first, Okay, let me,
I want to do the water test. Uh. What they
wanted to do was, um, see what happened when you
put it twinkie in water? Straightforward enough, let's sit there,
and they said this, and this is on their website.
As soon as the twinkie was placed in the water,
it's swelled to a extimately twice it's normal size. A

(19:02):
quick tactile observation indicated that the twinkie immediately began to
lose its structural integrity. The color of the twinkie paled
to an off white color, while the water below the
twinkie turned a dark yellow brown, while the water above
the twinkie remained clear, which is interesting, and they showed pictures.
So basically they left it in there for forty eight hours.
They said the creamy filling somehow oozed out of the

(19:24):
center and collected on the surface of the water, and
basically it turned into a lump of goo by the
end of it. So that was the water inclusion the conclusion. Actually,
I don't have the observation. I think the observation was
it turned into a lumpy goo of mess in the water.
You got my other favorite one, my second favorite dropping

(19:46):
off the building. Did you print that out? No? You
do that one? I got another one? Okay, Yeah. They
did the gravity test on two twinkies get to find
out whether or not Twinkies or subject to gravity. I
think they would float up when then been cool. So
they released twinkies off the sixth floor and I like
the picture of the twinkie circle and drop. And they

(20:06):
said that upon impact there was a loud splut sound,
a small crack opened on one side of the twinkie.
There was no noticeable change in the control. So they
dropped the twinkie again, the same split sound was heard.
Then they dropped the same twinkie. Yeah, and this is
I love this line. The fissure in the side of
the twinkie widened again, no noticeable change, and basically the

(20:29):
twinkie and the control Twinkie didn't really completely split upen
It just kind of some of the stuff oozed out.
But they are affected by gravity. I did have the
conclusion in this one, however, the reaction on impact is
much smaller than expected, and they maintain maintain a good
deal of structural integrity from such a lofty fall. Yeah,
six stories, Yeah it's not bad. And my favorite actually

(20:50):
um was that they wanted to find out whether Twinkies
were sentient or not, and they decided to run this
test last because they had killed a lot of Twinkies,
as they put it, and they didn't want to know
that they were sentient while they were dropping him off
six you know story buildings. So they actually administered the
Turing test, which is normally used to test whether or

(21:11):
not a computer has developed an artificial intelligence. Right, if
you put a person in a computer in another room
or whatever, and you direct questions to both of them
simultaneously and both answer. If you can't tell the difference,
then the computer has developed artificial intelligence. So they conducted
a turn test or turning sorry test on a sophomore

(21:33):
at the college and a Twinkie, and they put them
behind a sheet you couldn't see who's who, and they
asked certain questions. Um, like they asked the twinkie in
the students. Yes. So question one was what would you
describe as the purpose of your existence? And uh, subject B,
which was the guy. Uh the answer was to wou

(21:56):
women and subject A in parentheses no answer, And it
just kind of goes on like that, like, um, they
wanted to know how the both of them felt about
their mother. Um, they did some free association, like the
word health prompted the answer sex for free association from
subject B. Um, the the word spam prompted no answer

(22:19):
from subject A, and so on. So they determined that
twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do not
have intelligence. That is a relief. Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah? Yeah,
as a vegetarian, I think, or a vegan, you would
have to stop eating twinkies. Oh I'm not a vegan, No,
of course not. Okay, you're beefeater, Yeah, I am definite,

(22:59):
So chuck. Most twinkies ever eaten by a person? You
want to guess who it is? Uh, Jerry our producer,
She's close. Okay, she's very close. Um. Actually there is
a guy who is eighty nine, and I believe he
lives in Indiana and his name is Lewis Browning. He's
been eating a twinkie day since nineteen. He's up the

(23:21):
twenty thousand wow dwarfed by the creator of the twinkie,
James Stewart. Oh really, he lived to be eighty eight
and he ate an estimated forty thousand twinkies in his life.
While not bad, not bad at all. So it hats
off to both of those men. And I actually I
was thinking maybe I should start eating a twinkie a

(23:41):
day and see what happens. You know what they say, Josh,
a twinki day keeps a doctor away. That's not true.
It's not true because they're really not great for you.
But I think if you in anything in moderation, you
don't go nuts with the twinkies, you're probably all right.
But there's Chuck's final thought on twinkies, which means twinkies
are done right. I'm done. Okay, I'm done too, so
we'll be done with twinkies now. I really, actually I

(24:03):
wanted to go eat a twinkie. Yeah, we should have
brought some up here, agreed. I told you too. And
you're too cheap to go buy him for us. I
could have expensed it too. Yeah, all right, well maybe afterwards. Okay,
So Chuck Twinkies is done, which means it's listener mail time, Josh,
I'm gonna call this listener mail from Amsterdam, alright, one

(24:24):
of my favorite places, as you know. Uh. This comes
from Robin in Portland, Oregon, and Robin was recently an Amsterdam. Actually,
the funny thing is Robin's friends Steph Stephanie wrote in
and told us the story and said, you know, my
friend Robin's too chicken to write in for some reason.
And I said, you know what, tell Robin right in
and she'll make a listener mail with the story. Chuck

(24:44):
delivers on his promises she did. I was recently an
Amsterdam for a combination work holiday trip, staying in a
fabulous top floor apartment. I took a break from work
one day and wanted to the patio for some fresh air,
and I realized I closed a patio door and locked
myself out and was stuck. No phone, no keys, no jacket,
no way down, and it was pouring down rain. Uh.

(25:06):
The neighbors heard my cries for help. They were able
to log into my email account, find local apartment contacts
phone number and throw me their cell phone to make
the call. Luckily, the contact had a spare key and
was able to let her out in five hours after
she gets off work. So I hunkered down in a
small corner of the patio. Apparently she had a little

(25:27):
space like a two ft by two foot space where
she wasn't getting rained on for five hours waiting to
be rescued and did I mentioned that. By stroke of luck,
I had my iPod with me and it just downloaded
several months worth of stuff you should know, silver lining, acclamation,
all caps uh. In between learning all about face transplants,
exploding lakes, DejaVu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching,

(25:49):
doing jumping Jack's, weeding the plants, and taking short naps. Uh.
It was one of the best five hours spent doing
absolutely nothing. Rarely do I take a step back and
just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck
your You both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained, insane,
and thanks to our day together, I was able to
flex my intellectual muscle by holding my own on who

(26:09):
owns the ocean debate with other international travelers. So she
says her friends stuff turned us on to uh turn
her onto the show, and thanks a lot, keep up
the good work. And she has a loyal listener. So
she was stuck out on a porch and Amsterdam and
we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cool. Thanks what's
her name but cool? Robin of Portlands or Robin all right,

(26:32):
Thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out
there wants to share your story about an interventionist God
forcing you into a situation where you have to listen
to us, you can send us that in an email
to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it

(26:53):
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house, stuff works dot
com on pitch